"Yesterday my desktop died, and so I went ahead and got a brand new Windows 8 laptop. It's always been my feeling that as years go on, user experience has been going down for people who use a computer and the Internet, because of decisions all companies make that are clearly anti-user, either because they think they know best, or in many cases, for financial gains. But from spending all night reinstalling everything and customizing the laptop, I realized just how bad it has become." Probably the biggest reason to go Mac or Linux. Such a shame Microsoft found it more important to pressure OEMs into silly Secure Boot nonsense instead of doing something about the anti-user crapware disaster. Goes to show who Microsoft cares about. Hint: it ain't you.

This story however as the WereCatf points out not only isn't new it's business as usual... More then anything I'm surprise that Thom seems surprised.

Well, to be precise, the blog post wasn't written by Thom Holwerda. Thom only latched onto it to get a few cheap shots at Microsoft specifically, whereas the blog post itself is talking about a much broader thing.

While I am somewhat in line with Thom's overall sentiment towards Microsoft, I have to say I agree with you here. Sorry Thom, but you are really reaching.

For my part, I'm leaning much more heavily on GNU/Linux lately, especially since I found the awesomeness that is Manjaro Linux*; I'm almost ready to shelve Windows 7. The only thing holding me back is my WP7 phone, and given that Sprint has yet to commit to WP8, I may end up going back to the Nexus S by default. When that happens (and whenever my Xbox finally sells) I'll have a Microsoft-free computing environment again.

All that said, it's not because I don't like Windows 7; rather, I think it's the best thing they've ever produced. But if I don't need it, if my laptop runs better with GNU/Linux, and if it gets a truncated support cycle as has been hinted at, then I won't bother keeping it around. BUT, I'm not going to go on a tirade about how bad Windows 8 is or how much crap is on PCs made by companies with a reputation for loading crapware. Most people know that if you buy a computer from HP, Toshiba or Sony you're going to get a ton of software you'll never use.

One thing I do know for sure: I will never own Windows 8. Not because of the content of this article or in these discussions, but simply because I don't like the direction the OS is going. I feel the same about OS X; Snow Leopard is on my Mac mini and that's as far as I'm going in that camp.

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*Arch based but with custom repos so no elitist Arch admin shenanigans can ruin the OS for those of us who actually use our computers to get shit done, instead of squealing like a schoolgirl whenever there's a kernel commit.